Mike Clay

Football Daily Dose

Maximize Your Starting Lineup

You should never go into a fantasy football draft with a set plan as to when you will target certain positions. That’s true.

You should, however, have a gameplan penciled into place as a guideline for when you intend on targeting certain positions. Instead of focusing on the absurdly impressive numbers put up by Aaron Rodgers and Rob Gronkowski last season, look deeper down the ADP list and consider the relative value of those players compared to players with similar ADPs at other positions. Gronkowski sounds great as a guy who will hold down your tight end position all season, but what if that leaves you with DeAngelo Williams as your RB2? Consider that Fred Davis’ ADP is one slot after Williams. Would you prefer Gronkowski and Williams or, say, Trent Richardson and Davis? Your gut should be telling you to get the premier tailback and a study of Value Based Drafting (VBD) would tell you the same.

Today, I’m going to look at ADP and examine the players being selected in the first nine rounds of a 12-team league. Here’s the twist. Instead of starting with the first round, I’m going to work backwards. This way, we can find value picks later in the draft, making earlier selections easier. This will help maximize what you can get out of your starting lineup (plus one reserve for good measure).

For the sake of this article, we’re going to assume a starting lineup that includes 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, and 1 Flex. Scoring will be standard across the board, including no PPR.

Here’s where our strategy begins. Ideally, your starting lineup is completely full at this point, but considering the lack of depth at running back, it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re selecting your starting tight end or third wide receiver here. The way our draft will work out, we’re simply looking for bench depth here.

Looking at the best available, we see one name that really stands out among the rest: Donald Brown. Brown is easily our best value pick considering the drop from him to the other remaining running backs. Unless he loses the starting gig, it’s hard to imagine he’ll be available this late come August. Nonetheless, his availability here tells us that it’s not the end of the world if you need to wait a bit to fill your flex position with a capable tailback. For the sake of this article, he’s our pick.

By the way, in our current format (2 RB, 3 WR, Flex), it’s important that you target a running back as your Flex. In 2-2-1 formats, the RB3 and WR3-level players are pretty equal in points scored, but when you add that extra dozen wide receivers, our projections will show a clear advantage to running backs. In this example, (Teaser Alert) we end up grabbing three early backs, but Brown’s late availability gives us a strong fourth option at a very important position.

Other options here include Jacob Tamme and Santonio Holmes. Four of our top-12 rated tight ends are still on the board, which shows the drop-off after the top-eight. Had Brown not been available, Tamme would’ve been an easy pick (which would’ve changed our eighth-round pick). Holmes is a back-end WR3, so you wouldn’t be getting great value had you been forced to settle on him.

Entering the eighth round, this is the point in the draft where you’re relatively relaxed. Your starters are pretty much set in stone and you’re a round away from only having to worry about grabbing a few handcuffs and upside bench stashes.

Of course, before we start filling the queue with lottery tickets, we still have that one last starter to pick up. We’re already seeing the depth of each position outside of running back. Roethlisberger is our No. 12 quarterback, but as we’ll see next round, the drop-off from No. 8 is very small. There are a few appealing running backs here, but mostly upside guys you’d feel better about on your bench (Ingram, Wilson). Denarius Moore is our only “addition” at wide receiver and he isn’t a terribly better option than Holmes. The standout here is Fred Davis. Our eighth-ranked tight end is a bit of a drop-off from the top-seven, but he’s an absolute value two rounds after Jermichael Finley came off the board. He’s the pick.

Remember, had Donald Brown not been available, we would’ve wanted Tamme in the ninth round. That would’ve eliminated Davis here. The best alternative would’ve been to go with a fourth wideout (Moore) or, because he’s not much better than the next handful of wideouts, another running back (Williams, Ingram, Ridley, Wilson all worthy). The project we’re doing focuses on maximizing your starting lineup, but, as mentioned earlier, don’t feel like you can’t grab a value running back and wait on your tight end or third wide receiver.

Tight end is eliminated and Donald Brown still paces the best-available running back list. That leaves us looking to maximize our roster at either quarterback or wide receiver. Starting with the former, we see four options we won’t have next round. Although being the team that starts a run is often a good idea, it’s not here. The five quarterbacks shown are very close in value and a pretty steep drop from Tony Romo, who we should be targeting a round earlier.

Instead, we’ll grab our eventual third wide receiver. The best available here is Pierre Garcon, but there are several strong options to choose from, including Torrey Smith and Robert Meachem. We rank these guys as middle-of-the-pack WR3 options, so they’re all fine choices. Because he’s top-ranked on our list, Garcon is the pick.

The fifth and sixth rounds really highlight why the selection of running backs early on is the right decision. As we enter the sixth round, we start to see some very strong options at the quarterback, wide receiver, and tight end position. Meanwhile, Donald Brown is still the fourth best running back option, while top running back options Jonathan Stewart and C.J. Spiller are stuck in legitimate committee attacks.

Meanwhile, our No. 4 tight end (Jermichael Finley), No. 8 wide receiver (Brandon Lloyd), and No. 7 quarterback (Tony Romo) are all available. Passing on running back early would force you to skip out on these great values at other positions. Because we’re already finished at tight end, Finley is out. Lloyd vs. Romo would’ve been tough, but the good news is that both are also available in the fifth round. Because Romo’s ADP is later than Lloyd’s, he’s our pick here.

You should never go into a fantasy football draft with a set plan as to when you will target certain positions. That’s true.

You should, however, have a gameplan penciled into place as a guideline for when you intend on targeting certain positions. Instead of focusing on the absurdly impressive numbers put up by Aaron Rodgers and Rob Gronkowski last season, look deeper down the ADP list and consider the relative value of those players compared to players with similar ADPs at other positions. Gronkowski sounds great as a guy who will hold down your tight end position all season, but what if that leaves you with DeAngelo Williams as your RB2? Consider that Fred Davis’ ADP is one slot after Williams. Would you prefer Gronkowski and Williams or, say, Trent Richardson and Davis? Your gut should be telling you to get the premier tailback and a study of Value Based Drafting (VBD) would tell you the same.

Today, I’m going to look at ADP and examine the players being selected in the first nine rounds of a 12-team league. Here’s the twist. Instead of starting with the first round, I’m going to work backwards. This way, we can find value picks later in the draft, making earlier selections easier. This will help maximize what you can get out of your starting lineup (plus one reserve for good measure).

For the sake of this article, we’re going to assume a starting lineup that includes 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, and 1 Flex. Scoring will be standard across the board, including no PPR.

Here’s where our strategy begins. Ideally, your starting lineup is completely full at this point, but considering the lack of depth at running back, it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re selecting your starting tight end or third wide receiver here. The way our draft will work out, we’re simply looking for bench depth here.

Looking at the best available, we see one name that really stands out among the rest: Donald Brown. Brown is easily our best value pick considering the drop from him to the other remaining running backs. Unless he loses the starting gig, it’s hard to imagine he’ll be available this late come August. Nonetheless, his availability here tells us that it’s not the end of the world if you need to wait a bit to fill your flex position with a capable tailback. For the sake of this article, he’s our pick.

By the way, in our current format (2 RB, 3 WR, Flex), it’s important that you target a running back as your Flex. In 2-2-1 formats, the RB3 and WR3-level players are pretty equal in points scored, but when you add that extra dozen wide receivers, our projections will show a clear advantage to running backs. In this example, (Teaser Alert) we end up grabbing three early backs, but Brown’s late availability gives us a strong fourth option at a very important position.

Other options here include Jacob Tamme and Santonio Holmes. Four of our top-12 rated tight ends are still on the board, which shows the drop-off after the top-eight. Had Brown not been available, Tamme would’ve been an easy pick (which would’ve changed our eighth-round pick). Holmes is a back-end WR3, so you wouldn’t be getting great value had you been forced to settle on him.

Entering the eighth round, this is the point in the draft where you’re relatively relaxed. Your starters are pretty much set in stone and you’re a round away from only having to worry about grabbing a few handcuffs and upside bench stashes.

Of course, before we start filling the queue with lottery tickets, we still have that one last starter to pick up. We’re already seeing the depth of each position outside of running back. Roethlisberger is our No. 12 quarterback, but as we’ll see next round, the drop-off from No. 8 is very small. There are a few appealing running backs here, but mostly upside guys you’d feel better about on your bench (Ingram, Wilson). Denarius Moore is our only “addition” at wide receiver and he isn’t a terribly better option than Holmes. The standout here is Fred Davis. Our eighth-ranked tight end is a bit of a drop-off from the top-seven, but he’s an absolute value two rounds after Jermichael Finley came off the board. He’s the pick.

Remember, had Donald Brown not been available, we would’ve wanted Tamme in the ninth round. That would’ve eliminated Davis here. The best alternative would’ve been to go with a fourth wideout (Moore) or, because he’s not much better than the next handful of wideouts, another running back (Williams, Ingram, Ridley, Wilson all worthy). The project we’re doing focuses on maximizing your starting lineup, but, as mentioned earlier, don’t feel like you can’t grab a value running back and wait on your tight end or third wide receiver.

Tight end is eliminated and Donald Brown still paces the best-available running back list. That leaves us looking to maximize our roster at either quarterback or wide receiver. Starting with the former, we see four options we won’t have next round. Although being the team that starts a run is often a good idea, it’s not here. The five quarterbacks shown are very close in value and a pretty steep drop from Tony Romo, who we should be targeting a round earlier.

Instead, we’ll grab our eventual third wide receiver. The best available here is Pierre Garcon, but there are several strong options to choose from, including Torrey Smith and Robert Meachem. We rank these guys as middle-of-the-pack WR3 options, so they’re all fine choices. Because he’s top-ranked on our list, Garcon is the pick.

The fifth and sixth rounds really highlight why the selection of running backs early on is the right decision. As we enter the sixth round, we start to see some very strong options at the quarterback, wide receiver, and tight end position. Meanwhile, Donald Brown is still the fourth best running back option, while top running back options Jonathan Stewart and C.J. Spiller are stuck in legitimate committee attacks.

Meanwhile, our No. 4 tight end (Jermichael Finley), No. 8 wide receiver (Brandon Lloyd), and No. 7 quarterback (Tony Romo) are all available. Passing on running back early would force you to skip out on these great values at other positions. Because we’re already finished at tight end, Finley is out. Lloyd vs. Romo would’ve been tough, but the good news is that both are also available in the fifth round. Because Romo’s ADP is later than Lloyd’s, he’s our pick here.

I foreshadowed that our fifth round pick would be Lloyd, but we can investigate as to why he’s a better pick than some other available players.

First of all, we see a strong group of wideouts added behind Lloyd, but he’s still our best available. That makes him a great value in each of the next two rounds. We see no new additions at quarterback, which is why we were able to wait for Romo next round. At tight end, Hernandez and Gates are now in the mix, but they aren’t near as good a value pick as Lloyd is now or Davis will be later. Wells is actually the best value on the board, but (Teaser Alert), we’re already settled at all three running back slots (including flex).

To answer it, we’d need to trace VBD through each pick. Calculations show that a Steven Jackson-Brandon Lloyd combo is significantly better than a Beanie Wells-Julio Jones duo. And if you’re wondering if we should wait and take Lloyd in the sixth round, the math is closer, but still favors our current strategy.

The better question to ask, however, is: “If Wells is the best value, why not keep loading up on running backs and fill in the blanks later?”

Theoretically, that’s not the wrong decision. The problem is that you’d essentially be drafting Wells (who really isn’t that far ahead of Lloyd) with the hope of trading him for a better player at another position once the draft was concluded. If you can pull that off, it’s a good call, but it’s risky. Frankly, you’d be hard-pressed to get a wide receiver of Lloyd’s caliber (at least according to our rankings) in return for Wells. If a player like Adrian Peterson or Jamaal Charles fell this far, however, you should grab the fourth running back without hesitation. Rewinding and changing topics a bit, you’ll recall that both Lloyd and Romo were available in the sixth round. It probably seems as though we’re wasting some value by essentially reaching on Lloyd when we know he can be had next round, but that’s an occupational hazard of using a snake draft over an auction. Had this been an auction, we could’ve taken Romo and Lloyd well below market, allowing us to upgrade elsewhere.

Settled at quarterback and tight end, and with a pair of wide receivers in the mix, our first four picks will need to cover running back (x3) and a third wideout.

Looking at our best available, we see that Michael Vick, Doug Martin, and Mike Wallace are in the mix. We’re starting to really get into the top fantasy performers. Vick gets a decent edge over Romo, but the latter is a much better value two rounds from now. The decision really comes down to Martin and Wallace. Very much like the example we laid out in the fifth round, this is a matter of comparing VBD. We need to examine how choosing a wide receiver in the first three rounds would impact the overall value of our starting lineup.

Taking our wide receiver in the fourth round is clearly the right call. Note that, although we don’t actually know our draft slot for this exercise, it wouldn’t matter. As you’ll see later, I conservatively went middle of the first round in selecting Mathews as our top pick. Had I gone Foster, our strategy looks even better. Any other running back with a better ranking or ADP than Johnson would still give us the same result.

Well, there’s no longer much analysis to do. I broke down all of our decision-making earlier on, leaving us with the easy task of starting off with three running backs. The best available here in the third round is Steven Jackson. Because I didn’t mention this earlier, it’s worth noting that we show a pretty massive drop from the tier Jackson finishes to the one Doug Martin starts. It makes getting Jackson here even sweeter.

Again, not much to say here. Our rankings show Jamaal Charles as the best available, but no one would fault you for grabbing Marshawn Lynch or Demarco Murray. We know Jackson will be waiting for us in the third round.

As mentioned earlier, this is where it can get tricky because we don’t know our draft slot. I conservatively went middle-of-the-pack and gave us Mathews. Calvin Johnson is not worth the No. 4 overall pick, so we would’ve passed on him there anyways. Aaron Rodgers is a fine pick at No. 9, but when you consider the eventual value we can get on Tony Romo and the fact that we could theoretically be picking earlier and thus have an Arian Foster or LeSean McCoy, getting the running back is the right call here. Also, don’t forget that as each player comes off the board, the value of every single other player changes. For example, if the first eight picks are running backs, the remaining backs increase in value as a result of a drop in supply to meet the demand. Couple the drop-off after Rodgers and Johnson at their positions with the fact that most first-round picks are running backs and you end up with an easy decision with your first few picks.

The RB-RB-RB approach is one few owners can swallow on draft day, but we showed here today that depth at other positions can allow you to maximize your starting lineup with this strategy.

I realize that everyone has their own opinion on each player and maybe this particular lineup doesn’t get you overly excited. That’s okay. Remember, we just took our best available each round. You can still follow the framework of this gameplan and still get your guys. Scared of Charles’ knee? Take Marshawn Lynch or DeMarco Murray. Not expecting a big year from Wallace? Percy Harvin and Dez Bryant are available in that spot. When we took Lloyd in the fifth round, Demaryius Thomas, Dwayne Bowe, Jeremy Maclin, and Kenny Britt were all available.

I mentioned this throughout the article and it’s important to reiterate. Although you should be leaning towards a running back-heavy approach early on, flexibility is key to a good draft. Don’t feel like you have to pass on an Aaron Rodgers or Calvin Johnson early in the second round simply because you want to get that second running back. Follow your board and study up on VBD. When all is said and done, your starting lineup will be the envy of the league.